annoying noise

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Both my home and work computers contain a “boing” noise which sounds (even when I have the application set for no sound effects)every time I close, delete, or move anything in Outlook or Internet Explorer. I’ve tried adopting theme sound effects or using the sounds control panel, and the noise will go away – but in a couple of hours it’s back again. I’ve unchecked the sound effects box in Office/Outlook. I’ve checked every .WAV file on both machines, and none of the files make this boing sound. Help! I want some sound effects, but not this one!

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Try:

Start, Find, Files or Folders.

Type *.WAV for Search Criteria, and ensure that ‘My Computer’ is selected. Look for ‘boing.wav’ or execute each file until the noise is discovered. Once you locate the file, rename or delete it.

Hope this works!

Drk.

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I already did both those things. There is no file named boing or anything close to it, and there is no .wav file that makes this noise. I’ve checked every single .wav file. I’ve gone through this process twice.

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A bit of a mystery.

The following Theme .wav files make a type of ‘boing’:

Mystery Default Sound.wav
Space Question.wav
Underwater Default sound.wav

There may be others. But you say you have checked them all and none sound like the noise you are hearing.

Perhaps (just perhaps) someone is playing around with your machines when you are away from them. A bit unlikely I suppose since both the machine at home and at work have the same problem.

Alternatively, maybe it’s coming from the monitor when it wakes up after having been on stand-by. One of our machines has a 17″ Gateway monitor (EV700) and it makes a ‘swooshing’ noise when it wakes up. Perhaps other monitors make a ‘boing’??

BUT (having re-read for first post) you say that it only occurs with events in Outlook or Internet Explorer. GRRRR !!!

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Not that I have EVER heard of it… but thinking outside the box, is it possible that your Outlook is playing a .mid or other sound file????

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My, there are a lot of midi files on there I didn’t know about! There’s even one named spring, but it turns out to be a sprightly little harpsichord number. I listened to all the small midi files I could find, and none of them comes close. Are there other common sound file extensions I can search on?

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Well, in going to my favorite search site, and typing “Windows Sound File Formats” I’ve returned the following results:

.au
.mpg
.mpeg
.snd
.aif
.aifc
.aiff

You might give those a try, Windows Media Player recognizes these formats.

Hope this helps!

Drk.

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Thanks for the info. I have .au and .snd files, but none of them pan out. No incidence of the other file formats on my machine. I can’t figure out how a sound file can exist incognito!

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This is puzzling. A couple of things…

Are you sure it is not the system speaker sound? You can mute the volume control, and see if it still plays.

Second, you say changing sounds or themes disables this, temporarily. Does the old them return on restart, when the sound recurs, or is it the same theme, but now the sound is there?

Did this coincide with anything special, adding or removing hardware or software?

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Not the system sound; gone when speaker volume down. I just got the little [censored] back after a couple of days of relief. Most recent activities – downloaded some Palm software and installed it. I don’t download or install software often enough for that to be the only trigger, though-
The theme doesn’t go all the way away, but this sound is added to it.

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I thought I’d throw in my 2 cents worth:

Try unseating the sound card from its slot and re-seating it a couple of times to clear out any corrosion, etc. that may be creating static. You may even try running without the card to see if it still occurs. If you have a back-up sound card see if it still happens. I’d even check the wire connections on the sound card to the speakers as well.

Hope you find it!

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Okay bud, here’s what I was able to find..

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article Q250404 Refers to Registry entities that define sound paths.

Seems that’s all they had on the problem.

Hope this helps!

Drk.

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I’m still wondering what steps you take, exactly, to get the problem to stop.
Also, when the problem recurs, have those steps been undone? Or is it a case that just changing to any theme causes it to stop?

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You mentioned in your first message you can make the sound go away, but it returns. What steps do you take, that makes it go away?

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I go into Control Panel and either designate a Windows Theme or, using the Sounds control panel, choose a sound effect scheme. There is no sound among those listed individually in the sounds control panel which matches the one I’m trying to banish (I’ve listened to each one in turn, several times) Once I designate a Windows Theme or a sound affects scheme, the “bad” sound goes away. But after a restart or even just after a longish period of inactivity, the sound is back. In Internet Explorer it seems to accompany closing an active window; in Outlook it sounds for deleting a message, moving a message into a folder, or closing a window. That’s a lot of noise when you’re sorting through a big pile of email!

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You are the champ!! I followed your directions and found that the offending sound was called “ignore.wav” and was part of Clipmate. Why it didn’t show up when I did my *.wav searches is a mystery, as is its repeated deployment when I wasn’t using Clipmate at all. But now it’s vanquished. A great big thanks from a much less irritated PC user!

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That Boing sound you hear from Clipmate (well, now you don’t hear it) is when a program releases its hold on the clipboard, I think. Doesn’t matter now, just a point of info, really. It’s never bothered me, I’ve used Clipmate for so long I’m used to it. Great program, by the way, if anyone’s interested, it can be found at
http://www.thornsoft.com.

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Again, toss that into ‘Software Finds!’

Drk.

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A superb example of how a Bulletin Board should solve a problem : my only regret is that I wasn’t part of it. A pity, though, they don’t all end like that!

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